I can hear how much fun Daniel had creating this piece. It samples words, voices, the birds that you can hear here. He made several visits to Wave Hill Garden and met with our naturalists, our horticulturalists, and some really fabulous students. All of that - he wove into this piece!

— Jennifer McGregor, Director of Arts, Wave Hill

RAKONTO: In the Garden

A celebration of the wondrous diversity of nature and the role it has in our lives.

This piece place during the course of one day - beginning with the sounds a traffic in the city, then transporting the listener to a place of refuge in nature and ending that evening with the sounds of the garden. This piece seeks to explore the dynamic of how city people find a space for the natural world in their lives. It features beautiful lyrical music, a piece that emulates a bee hive, sound-scapes of bird calls and city sounds, poetry - even a piece inspired by bats echolocation

In gathering voices for this piece, Daniel interviewed lots of fascinating people at Wave Hill public garden in the Bronx, New York City. The piece features their voices of gardeners, children singing about nature, city teens, naturalists describing birds and bats –along with settings of poems by Wordsworth and Mary Oliver.